


Like a daughter

by Zoya113



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, a bit of angst, concussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 18:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19817953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya113/pseuds/Zoya113
Summary: Hidgens panics a bit too much after hearing Emma accidentally got a slight concussion





	Like a daughter

**Author's Note:**

> Me rocking onto ao3 to post my daily 10 minute paulkins fic: hope ur ready for the shitshow

“No, no, no, no, no, what? What do you mean?” Hidgens shot out of his chair to his feet.   
“It’s-“ a fellow professor tried to explain but he wasn’t talking fast enough.   
“What! It’s what!?” Hidgens interrupted, pushing out of his office into the hallway and getting the teacher to follow him.  
“Where is she?”   
“She’s fine,” the professor tried to assure him. “But you’re her emergency contact so we came to get you first.”   
“Why didn’t you call an ambulance!” Hidgens picked up his pace, “where is she!”   
“She’s at the bottom of the staircase.” And with his answer, Hidgens left the professor behind, breaking out into a small run towards the college staircase.   
He heard it before he saw it - the confused, concern questions of two or three dozen students crowding the corridor trying to catch a glimpse of the accident.   
“Move, move, move,” Hidgens pushed through the thick crowd of curious students.   
There were two professors already trying to administer some sort of first aid, scattered medical supplies strewn throughout the clearing of students and a clique of panicked students trying to figure out what had happened.   
But right in the middle of it all was Emma Perkins, half-sitting, half-lying on the floor by the bottom of the staircase. A bad bruise on her forehead and her vacant eyes rolling into the back of her head.  
“Hey!” Hidgens pushes through the last of the crowd, annoyed grunts raising into the air behind him.   
He got down to his knees besides her, trying to make eye contact with her absent gaze.   
“Hey, Emma dear, can you hear me?” He took her shoulders to stop her head rolling back.   
“Ahh,” Emma moaned, managing to make eye contact with the professor.   
“Go, go, I can handle this!” He shooed away the other teachers, fighting to have Emma remain eye contact with him as she watched the crowd thin. “Someone go call an ambulance! Are you alright? Emma, speak to me.”   
Emma opened her mouth slowly, breathing in a shallow breath. “Shiiiit.”   
Hidgens stifled a relieved yet sad laugh. “Does your head hurt?” He asked.  
Emma nodded but looked to immediately regret it. “Aw fuck,” she mumbled, squinting.  
“Stay with me, okay?” He took off his jacket and draped it over her head to keep the ceiling lights out. “Better?”   
Emma let out a quiet ‘mhm’ this time instead.   
“And what happened to you, dear? Do you remember?”   
“Nup,” Emma blinked slowly.   
“I heard you fell down the stairs. Did someone push you?” His eyes darted away from her briefly but quickly to search the sparse crowd for the criminal.   
“No, just fell.” She gave her leg a firm pat, although he was certain she gestured to her good leg instead of her bad leg.  
“How’s your head?” He asked.  
Emma shrugged. “A bit ouch,” her eyes fell shut and her head moved to roll back again, she went limp in his arms.   
“Hey, Hey!” Hidgens clicked his fingers, sitting her back up. “Can you stay awake for me for a sec? The ambulance will arrive soon.”   
“Yeah I’m awake,” Emma’s voice was drawly and tired. “But sleep soon?”   
“Soon, soon, yes dear. But right now just make sure you’re staying with me. We think you have a concussion but it might be worse.   
Emma opened her mouth but only a pained sound came out and she fought to keep her eyes open.   
“Emma, hey!”  
“Hey,” Emma yelled back. “Hey, don’t yell. That hurts.”   
Hidgens nodded, readjusting his grip on her shoulders. His hands were getting sweaty. “Sorry, I won’t do that. Just hold on until the ambulance gets here, okay kid? You’ll be alright, you’ll be alright.”   
Emma snorted. “Hah, ha- hey, you’re more worried than me!” She shrugged, one hand tightening on the ice pack on her head one of the first-aid people must’ve given her earlier. “The ambulance? Pshh, yeah, I’ll pass.”   
“I don’t think that’s an option, dear. We just have to make sure your heads okay.   
Just make sure you’re breathing in and out. Can you keep talking to me?”   
Emma whined. “I don’t really want to. I really have to think about it ‘nd I don’t wanna.” Her voice was strained   
Hidgens nodded. “That’s-that’s fine. It’s okay. Can you just hold my hand then? Just hold it as tight as you can okay?”   
Emma didn’t answer vocally but her free limp hand searching for his. Her grip was not tight nor strong, it was frighteningly half-hearted.   
“And are we breathing?”   
“Yuh,” she mumbled, taking one deep breath in and slumping down. She let out one last noise before she dropped the ice pack from her head and let go of his hand, slumping into his chest.   
“Hey!” Then he was yelling again. “Is the ambulance here yet!?” He called to whoever was still nearby.   
His own breath caught in his chest and he was starting to feel sick himself. He could feel Adrenalin shoot through his body and he took her shoulders again, trying to sit her upright. “Emma, dear, Emma okay we’re not falling asleep right now okay? Just wait for the ambulance. I’m not gonna let this happen to you, you’re the closest thing I have to family anymore and you’re staying with me okay!?”   
Emma’s eyes blinked open, bloodshot and tired and unable to stare Hidgens in the eyes. “Aww hah, nice one dad.” One hand shot a messy finger gun while the other swung out forward in some sort of missed high five or pat on the back. She smiled with her teeth and took his hand again with a happy chuckle.   
Hidgens already red-from-stress face got redder. He couldn’t believe she had been out of it that whole time and yet had the sheer will power to hang on to those words out of anything else he had said.   
Hidgens could hear the sirens now.   
“Uh, Emma,” he took her finger gunning hand and patted it in his. “The nice paramedics are here to check on you now. Quick question, do you think you’ll forget about all this?”   
“Hah, sure dad. Consider it forgetted.”  
The two professors from before moved back in to help Emma sit up straighter.   
“They’re going to take me now, I’ll see you tomorrow Hidgens,” Emma told them, her face screwing up at the loud noise of the sirens.   
“Not on campus I hope,” Hidgens tried to joke but it went right over her head.   
“Oh, okay then.”   
The paramedics came in, sitting Emma up on the stairs to begin the tests.   
“Give us some space,” one of the paramedics said, dismissing the last few bystanders who seemed to have nowhere better to be.   
“We need you to take a step back sir,” one of the paramedics advised as the second paramedic began to check Emma’s vitals.   
“No, I’m- I just need-“   
“Everything will be alright sir, are you a professor here?”   
He nodded.   
“And do you know this girl?”   
‘Know’ was a bit of a weak word in this situation but he just nodded again.   
“Well everything will be okay, sir. We have this all under control.”

———————————————————  
“Babe, I’d love to humour your story about getting in a fist fight with a scary six foot tall man and winning but Hidgens told me you just fell down the stairs,” Paul chuckled lightly as he listened to Emma’s best recount possible of the events.   
“Aw man. Well, thanks for letting me live out that story for a little bit anyways,” she fiddled with a loose thread on the blankets, looking up and grinning at him where he sat at the foot of the bed.   
“Did someone push you?” He asked.  
“Nah, I fell down on my own. It was pretty on brand for ‘bad-leg-Emma’ honestly,” she sighed. “I don’t remember most of it though.”  
Paul snickered. “I’m glad you have some good spirits about this, Hidgens scared the shit out of me when he called me at work. I could barely understand him he was almost crying.”   
Emma nodded. “Yeah I only remember him like, pushing through the crowd and he kept yelling at everyone for shit, I don’t remember. Maybe he was yelling at me, no clue to be quite honest.”   
“And what did Hidgens do? He was pretty useless with the story really. Just a lot of ‘oh my god, oh my god she’s hurt!’ Stuff on his end.”   
“Well he’s still a Bio teacher. He knew a thing or two about first aid. He gave me his jacket to block out the lights and he tried to get me to keep talking but my brain wasn’t having that.”  
Paul snorted. “As in?”   
“Putting a sentence together was way too hard to do manually. He had me hold his hand so he could check if I was still awake because I remember he really didn’t want me passing out.”   
Paul smiled. “Well I’m glad he was taking care of you right. And then did the ambulance arrive?”   
Emma shook her head slowly as to not agitate it. She had already gotten in two days of rest but her ears would still ring if she moved her head too much. “I have this super clear memory where he was like ‘are we breathing?’ And I tried to say yes but my brain checked out, I made this dumb, stupid fucking noise instead like ‘yuh,’ then I doubled over and passed out. Folded like a fucking lawn chair.”  
“Hah! Yuh? At least your heart was in the right place,” Paul didn’t hold back his laughter.   
“Don’t rub it in, only I’m allowed to laugh at my misfortune!” Emma teased. “It must’ve looked like a fucking shit show for everyone watching.”   
“Then what? Do you remember?” Paul prompted.  
Emma searched through her memory and landed on one she hadn’t quite had time to think about until now. It was still blurry and unclear but she could feel the emotion. Her heart felt warm inside her chest and a soft smile came to her lips.   
“Oh, no. I don’t remember anything else.”


End file.
